We hope the death of Mack Ford will bring some measure of closure and healing to the girls’ whose lives he devastated. Though he goes to his grave having faced no consequences for his child sex crimes, Ford’s victim can take a little comfort from knowing that he can’t assault any more children.

Thursday, Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley speaks to prelates from across the globe about abuse. We hope that at least a few of those church officials will question O’Malley about his own track record on this crisis.

Several years ago, US Catholic officials found that in O’Malley’s archdiocese 64 out of 295 parishes refuse to teach abuse prevention to kids. O'Malley has had six years to comply with this church mandate. But he didn’t.

So the Pope’s abuse point man has been deemed in violation of the US bishops’ vague and weak national abuse policy.

We’re sad that a youth minister has apparently molested another child. Now that victims are cooperating and law enforcement is taking action, it’s crucial that West Virginia Presbyterian officials work harder to find other who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Timothy Probert.

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312 399 4747, bblaine@SNAPnetwork.org)

We firmly oppose the notion of Congressional hearings into how the NCAAA dealt with Penn State over the Joe Paterno/Jerry Sandusky scandal. This request, by Pennsylvania politician Jake Corman, seems like more posturing for Penn State fans who refuse to accept the reality that a fine football coach did not call police about child sex abuse suspicions.

In just less than an hour, using simple “Google” searches, we’ve found six predator priests who’ve been in Atlanta but have never been exposed here as credibly accused child molesters. We suspect there are many more of them still “beneath the radar.” We also suspect that some of them have hurt kids here in Georgia and one or more of them may still be here, posing current threats to unsuspecting families, neighbors and co-workers.

In September, Pope Francis will address the US Congress, a body that has refused, over decades, to take a single action to investigate or expose clergy sex abuse and cover up by Catholic priests, bishops, nuns, seminarians and brothers.

Abroad, a number of national or regional governments have conducted investigations and issued reports about this continuing crisis, including Ireland, Australia, Canada and Belgium.